


Unpaused

by NamelessNerd



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, POV change but it's necessary, Panic Attacks, the reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 16:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9665006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelessNerd/pseuds/NamelessNerd
Summary: proc·ess·ingˈpräˌses,ˈprōˌses/gerundverb: process; gerund verb: processing1.The act of dealing with ones emotions regarding a traumatizing event or revelation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short drabble of thoughts about revelations, anxiety, and the devil. Comments appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> Chloe processes, and in the process, becomes undone.

When Chloe was seven, her father took her to the fair. Loaded up on sugar and the thrill of the crowds, she clutched her father’s hand in hers as she dragged him with all her might to the tallest roller coaster. The nice man at the booth strapped her in, the harnesses chaffing against her shoulders as she became part of the ride. The metal click of a safety buckle, and a light tug on the strap to test its security. She looked at her father, standing on the landing, and gave him a smile. It wasn’t until the ride started moving that she realized she was alone, completely alone. It was something she could not control, no amount of panic or anxiety could stop the ride, and she wasn’t able to magically summon her father to her side. When the ride climbed up the tracks, and the blood rushed up to her head, she could feel her heart beat. The sound was loud in her ears, combining with the rough clatter of wheels on metal. And when the ride had reached its peak, and she could see the world spread out before her, she could have sworn her heart had stopped beating all together. As the world paused. Her dad had told her that that particular moment, the pause, was the worst part. When her mind could envision worry and fear and all the what-ifs that had not yet happened.

But she had never been warned about the unpause. The moment when the world started again, and she barreled back down to the ground. It felt like her body was going through some sort of a cosmic lag, where she herself was falling rapidly, and yet her internal organs hadn’t caught up yet, and were pressed into her throat. Her heart felt like it, and every other part of her, had leapt up into her neck, as if trying to hide from the inevitable and terrifying moment of impact. But of course, that never came. The ride puttered to a stop, and she got off the ride and ran over to her father, and proceeded to vomit all over his shoes. And thus her experience of roller coasters ended, as she vowed (to the best of the ability a seven year old can vow) that she would never go through that horror again. 

****

They say during a realization your mind moves at ‘a thousand seconds a minute’, a scientifically and temporally flawed hyperbole used to describe the frantic train of thought you go to during comprehension of a fact. But during the pause there is no thought. There are no words, no flowery adjectives. Just the moment of peace before the fall when you feel weightless, out of control and yet so utterly light and airy. After the initial peace comes the emotion: no concrete thoughts or opinions, just raw, naked emotion. Panic. Anxiety. The feeling that the entire world is closing in around you, the claustrophobia of merely living. The pain in everything. When you take in so much air, because you need it desperately, but the air hurts you. It stabs you when you breath, and who could have known that air could be so cold, so sharp. When your fingers dig into your palms and your nails draw blood, but the blood feels warm and you desperately need that warmth. When your heart beats so quickly you feel like it will explode, with the pressure and desperation of keeping a machine alive when that machine is so utterly failing with each passing second. The sensation of being without control. Without thought. Without yourself. And you unpause.

Your legs are moving, scrambling, falling. And you hit the ground but you need to keep moving. Hands gripping pavement and gravel, cutting themselves as they grab on to any handhold to try to jettison you backwards. Your legs and feet push out desperately on the ground, scrabbling furiously. And your back hits a wall and you can’t retreat anymore. The legs come up, and your arms wrap around them. Your neck tilts downwards and inwards, because inwards is safe. Exposed skin is not. Your shoulders tighten impossibly inwards, and you become the smallest fragment of yourself you can be. A ball. A shell. And you can smell iron and taste salt and vaguely comprehend the correspondence to the scent of blood and taste of tears, but you are too far gone to feel it. Your throat hurts from all the breathing, but no matter how many times you inhale you can’t seem to get any air. 

And you don’t need to see him to know that he’s taken a step towards you, you just know instinctively, and you scream or whimper or gasp, you’re not quite sure. You’re not quite sure of anything anymore. And he stops, and stares. And you can feel it. Every inch of the red eyes on your skin, burning into you. It itches furiously and you want to scratch desperately to try to pry the sensation off. 

Because that’s the thing about the unpause. It strips you of yourself. It strips you of who you are, and leaves you with just the base. None of the thought, none of the cognitive deductions or higher functions. Just raw, untainted panic. As if your body has lagged against your brain, and has taken over entirely. 

And another sob racks your body, and you come undone. 

And eventually you’ll be able to put yourself together again. With time.

Or you won’t. And you’ll never be the same.

It’s a gamble, when it comes to the unpause. And you don’t have the ability to predict. Because you are in the moment: in the panic. 

And you can’t get out alone.


End file.
